Family and friends embrace after the funeral service for Michigan-based novelist Elmore Leonard at Holy Name Catholic Church in Birmingham today. / Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press

Elmore Leonard works on a manuscript at his home in Bloomfield Township in 2010. Leonard died at his Bloomfield Township home Tuesday morning, three weeks after suffering a stroke. He was 87. / Carlos Osorio/Associated Press

Jane Jones (second from left), daughter of Elmore Leonard, receives a folded American flag after a Navy 'Farewell to Arms' while sitting next to her husband, brother Peter and his wife during Leonard's funeral service in Birmingham today. / Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press

Elmore Leonard's obituary / Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press

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Elmore Leonard’s favorite fan mail came from prisons. He liked to pull a gag to get through airport security more quickly. And he never let his children leave behind those morsels of gristle and fat on their dinner plates.

“Fat is flavor. That’s what he told me,” son Bill Leonard told a laughing audience at his father’s funeral Saturday. “And that’s what I tell my kids.”

In the days since the death of the legendary Michigan-based crime novelist, tributes to his lean writing style and mastery of dialogue rolled in from Hollywood to New York City. But on Saturday, his family and close friends spoke not so much about the crafter of novels like “Freaky Deaky” and “Get Shorty,” but of the father and friend.

Elmore Leonard died at his Bloomfield Township home Tuesday morning, three weeks after suffering a stroke. He was 87. About 325 people gathered inside Holy Name Catholic Church in Birmingham on Saturday morning to say good-bye. The listeners included longtime friend Mike Lupica, a sportswriter and novelist, and Timothy Olyphant, an actor in the FX TV series “Justified,” which is based on Leonard’s works.

“Elmore truly was gifted with creativity, skill and talent,” the Rev. Joe Grimaldi said during his homily. “The twinkle in his eye showed he also enjoyed having fun.”

The service featured tears and laughter, and military honors for his time in the Navy during World War II. The priest and Leonard’s three sons told stories about Leonard serving fried Spam sandwiches for breakfast without Mom’s approval. And cutting out of a monotonous conference in Arizona and barreling down the highway at 100 m.p.h. to check out a nearby prison. Oh, with his 17-year-old son at the wheel.

Peter Leonard, now much older, said their travels together were adventurous, even recently, as his father still would gag his way through airport security more quickly by feigning to be a bewildered old man.

Elmore Leonard loved his fans, and their letters, Peter Leonard said.

“His favorite letters were from convicts,” Peter said, and then he began quoting from one: “How I ended up here is a long unbelievable tale involving dysfunctional women, heroin and pure foolishness. Your books are the first ones I’ve liked and can share with my beloved semi-literate fellow criminals and maniacs.”

Peter Leonard explained that the inmate was so taken with his father’s ability to create dialogue that he was sure Elmore Leonard had served time somewhere.

Bill Leonard riffed on his father’s well-known “10 Rules of Writing,” a missive that ends most famously with “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”

Bill Leonard said his dad should have written “10 Rules of Parenting,” which would have included: Always buy your children gum when going to the grocery, let them work the car’s stick shift, never let them leave food on a plate and never read them bedtime stories. Make up your own.

Bill Leonard said he’d received lots of condolences since his father’s death, none so poignant as one he received from a Facebook friend: